Russell Ingall's comments on Race 3.
Wanted to weigh in on the Saturday crash at Symmons Plains, specifically the Rick Kelly & Fabian Coulthard part of the incident.
Here's the real racing deal, with real facts, not fantasy or emotion.
Firstly, Coulthard being docked 35 Championship points - wrong call.
Look at the in car footage here from Tim Slade & I'll walk you through it.Concertina of cars into turn 2, Slade slightly into the back of Rick. Coulthard goes inside of Waters, who has run wide. All good at this stage, just hard racing. Coulthard does the right thing leaving Waters room (could easily have ran him off the road), which actually hurts his exit and gives Rick opportunity to come up the inside on the exit of 2. Both Coulthard & Rick side by side going into turn 3 with Fabian staying down low to give Rick real estate.Where the next part got ugly is there is a patch of bitumen on the apex of 3 which is different from the bitumen that Rick is on. There is also more standing water on the inside of that turn than the outside. The outside is actually far grippier in the wet than the inside giving Rick a good run out but unfortunately for Fabian, as soon as he hit that patch, the car stepped slightly sideways, tagging Rick.
Fact is, it was a game move around the outside in any case by Rick, because wet or dry, you know it's going to get tight on the exit of that corner. Of course, either driver had the option of pulling out, but that's not what racing is about. That was pure and simple a racing incident in quite challenging conditions.
What happened after that is hard to judge with the next part of the crash not conclusive on how Tander got turned as there's not enough clear vision.
Believe what you want but these are the facts.
Wanted to weigh in on the Saturday crash at Symmons Plains, specifically the Rick Kelly & Fabian Coulthard part of the incident.
Here's the real racing deal, with real facts, not fantasy or emotion.
Firstly, Coulthard being docked 35 Championship points - wrong call.
Look at the in car footage here from Tim Slade & I'll walk you through it.Concertina of cars into turn 2, Slade slightly into the back of Rick. Coulthard goes inside of Waters, who has run wide. All good at this stage, just hard racing. Coulthard does the right thing leaving Waters room (could easily have ran him off the road), which actually hurts his exit and gives Rick opportunity to come up the inside on the exit of 2. Both Coulthard & Rick side by side going into turn 3 with Fabian staying down low to give Rick real estate.Where the next part got ugly is there is a patch of bitumen on the apex of 3 which is different from the bitumen that Rick is on. There is also more standing water on the inside of that turn than the outside. The outside is actually far grippier in the wet than the inside giving Rick a good run out but unfortunately for Fabian, as soon as he hit that patch, the car stepped slightly sideways, tagging Rick.
Fact is, it was a game move around the outside in any case by Rick, because wet or dry, you know it's going to get tight on the exit of that corner. Of course, either driver had the option of pulling out, but that's not what racing is about. That was pure and simple a racing incident in quite challenging conditions.
What happened after that is hard to judge with the next part of the crash not conclusive on how Tander got turned as there's not enough clear vision.
Believe what you want but these are the facts.
